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Twitter Deletes Over 10,000 Bots That Discouraged US Midterm Voting (cnn.com)
Twitter has deleted over 10,000 disinformation bots discouraging Americans from voting in Tuesday's midterm elections.
An anonymous reader quotes CNN: Twitter said that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had brought the accounts to their attention. "For the election this year we have established open lines of communication and direct, easy escalation paths for state election officials, DHS, and campaign organizations from both major parties," the spokesperson said. The company said it believes the network of accounts was run from the United States.
The 10,000 accounts were deleted in late September and early October, Reuters reports: The number is modest, considering that Twitter has previously deleted millions of accounts it determined were responsible for spreading misinformation in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Yet the removals represent an early win for a fledgling effort... The DCCC launched the effort this year in response to the party's inability to respond to millions of accounts on Twitter and other social media platforms that spread negative and false information about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and other party candidates in 2016, three people familiar with the operation told Reuters... The DCCC developed its own system for identifying and reporting malicious automated accounts on social media, according to the three party sources.
An anonymous reader quotes CNN: Twitter said that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had brought the accounts to their attention. "For the election this year we have established open lines of communication and direct, easy escalation paths for state election officials, DHS, and campaign organizations from both major parties," the spokesperson said. The company said it believes the network of accounts was run from the United States.
The 10,000 accounts were deleted in late September and early October, Reuters reports: The number is modest, considering that Twitter has previously deleted millions of accounts it determined were responsible for spreading misinformation in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Yet the removals represent an early win for a fledgling effort... The DCCC launched the effort this year in response to the party's inability to respond to millions of accounts on Twitter and other social media platforms that spread negative and false information about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and other party candidates in 2016, three people familiar with the operation told Reuters... The DCCC developed its own system for identifying and reporting malicious automated accounts on social media, according to the three party sources.
Since Twitter now needs phone numbers as an anti bot measure, trace the companies giving out phone numbers to bots.
With a byline like If you have reservations, vote Democratic, vote third party, or stay home in the 2018 midterm elections , I would hope the USA Today twitter account was also deleted (not holding my breath).
In the little over an hour since this story about trolls being removed from Twitter was posted, 34 of the 38 comments posted here were from anonymous cowards, and most of those were trolling, with comments like, "only n i g g e r s use Twitter" and "go choke yourself" and "it's an attack against conservatives" and how "the bots stuff is bullshit".
I count five making the case for not voting and three others making the "both sides are trash" argument (which is also a case against voting).
You don't have to go to Twitter to see this effect in action. The problem is, it's not working as well this time around.
You are welcome on my lawn.